Two Best Baked Apple Recipes With No Added Sugar For Toddlers To Adults

We know sugar is our enemy. As a post menopausal woman, I was advised that my body could not process sugar but could process fat, and that I should cut sugar from my diet for weight maintenance. I now do not worry as much about how much fat is in a food, but I monitor my sugar intake. It works. A Business Insider article gives us 15 horrible things that can happen if we eat too much sugar. A Harvard study shows that eating too much sugar increases the risk of dying from heart disease. For those with cancer, sugar is poison, as cancer cells metabolize sugar. See this recent Duke study on Science Daily which shows depletion of sugar causes cancer cell death.

What is a reasonable amount of sugar to ingest daily? Health Line says:

“According to the American Heart Association (AHA), the maximum amount of added sugars you should eat in a day are:

Men: 150 calories per day (37.5 grams or 9 teaspoons).

Women: 100 calories per day (25 grams or 6 teaspoons).

To put that into perspective, one 12oz can of coke contains 140 calories from sugar, while a regular sized snickers bar contains 120 calories from sugar.”

It is ADDED sugar that is the culprit, not foods that naturally contain sugar:

“It is very important to make the distinction between added sugars and sugars that occur naturally in foods like fruits and vegetables. These are healthy foods that contain water, fiber and various micronutrients. The naturally occurring sugars are absolutely fine.”

So, this Grandma has started looking for recipes that are “no sugar added.” Baked apples are a “natural,” easy to make and easy for even toddlers to enjoy.

At Whole Foods, I asked someone which apples to use. He told me the best apples for baked apples cannot be found in Florida, as Rome apples, which he said were the best as they were firm, do not do well on jostling trucks to get south. He suggested Fuji. He said specifically to not use delicious apples. Yes, also look for organic. Organic Fuji apples were fabulous for the two best recipes I found and tried.

The first recipe comes from Happy Healthy Mama, and drew my interest because it was simple and quick and garnered five star ratings. Check out the “Simple Baked Apple Recipe.”

I used just one apple, which made enough for two of us. I cooked it for the longer amount of time to get the pieces softer. It was wonderful, and would be wonderful over Breyer’s no sugar added vanilla ice cream.

The second recipe that caught my eye also was rated five stars, and looked like a fancy dessert. I found ‘Sugar Free Stuffed Baked Apples” on a website titled Veganosity. Yes, it was also recommended to top this with no sugar added vanilla ice cream. The recipe calls for baked apples stuffed with oats, chopped walnuts, and dried cranberries. I used Ocean Spray reduced sugar craisins, advertised as 50% less sugar and three times the fiber. I skipped the vegan butter and went for the real thing. I think it should really be titled “No Sugar Added Stuffed Baked Apples.”

And, if you are the laziest and want a quick “No Sugar Added” fabulous dessert, head to Whole Foods for their ONLY no sugar added desert in the entire bakery section, no sugar added apple pie. The crust has no sugar and the 3 grams of sugar per slice come naturally from the apples, which sugar content is one quarter of a six inch pie. It is delicious. I found little difference in taste between this and the sugar added pie, and felt better eating a healthier choice. Yes, this Grandma spoke to the head of the bakery department and asked them to consider adding other fruit pies to this one selection. Let’s see if that happens. I told the head of the bakery department that they would just need to put a sign up that their dessert was no sugar added and had only 3 grams of sugar per serving to sell out every pie. We all are concerned about our health and having unnecessary sugar in our desserts. I hoped she was not starring at the dozens of Whole Foods “sugar added” pies that then might go unsold.

Apples are a great fruit to start on the path to “no sugar added.” It is easy to sell apples to our grandchildren.

It does take some effort to go from “sugar added” to “no sugar added” in our diets and pay closer attention to our sugar intake. However, the effort is little, and the benefits great. Just look back on the first paragraph of this post.